Mechanical and electro-mechanical actuators are used to carry out a variety of tasks, ranging from heavy-duty tasks involving relatively high load and/or stress to relatively light duty tasks with various levels of precision. However, for a variety of applications, actuation has been challenging to implement in a reliable manner.
Motor vehicles employ a broad field of applications for which actuators or other movement-based devices have been used extensively. For example, in vehicle drive arrangements, it is often desirable and necessary to move mechanical components to facilitate the engagement, and disengagement, of a variety of systems such as gears, clutches, fluid controls, suspension controls and steering controls. To this end, many actuation-based devices have been extensively employed to effect vehicle control and operation. However, reliable and economical actuation has often been challenging to achieve.
The above and other difficulties have presented challenges to the operation of vehicle components and overall operation of the vehicles in which the components reside.